Google’s owner company Alphabet Inc. is considering to acquire Fitbit, a wearable device manufacturer, headquartered in San Francisco. The offer by Alphabet to Fitbit tells a lot about Google’s plan to enter the vast and crowded market of smartwatches and fitness tracking devices.
Google has already joined the league of global tech majors like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, etc. in making smartphones. It has still not started developing wearable items like Apple does. Since Google and Fitbit both have refused to comment, it is speculated that the negotiations are still in process and yet to be finalized. The price Google has offered to pay is also unknown.
The San Francisco-headquartered company was founded in 2007 by James Park and Eric Friedman, both of whom are serving as the current CEO and CTO respectively. The latest news comes after last month report which showed that Fitbit was in process of exploring a sale.
This also depicts the current picture of how people from all over the globe are becoming more careful about their health and fitness. Primarily in developing countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc., the craze for a tech-based fitness manual is quite high. Sale of smartwatches has been at an all-time high in India in the last couple of years. Google, after capturing a large space in the search engine technology market is looking to fill the huge void of a quality player in the fitness tracking market of the developing world.
Lately, it has been rumored that Google is very keen on making its own smartwatches. News of Google releasing its own branded pixel smartwatch also surfaced in media in 2016, although the company gave up the plan due to some unknown reasons. Now that it is looking to buy Fitbit, the company’s master-plan to have a presence in the industry will get a blistering nod.
The revenue forecast for Fitbit scheduled to come in July was cut down. The company blamed poor sale of its latest launched smart-watch Versa Lite, which is also the cheapest. In August 2019, the company has signed a deal with the Government of Singapore to offer fitness tracking and other health-related services, reaching up to 1 million people.
Once finalized, the deal will give a new direction to Google’s growth in the field of smartwatches.
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